Long Game 76: At the Forests of Madness

[Elandera she/her]

1 minute ago, Illwei said:

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh @Elandera Is my vote on gears actually not there or was this a mistake?

Yup, that was a mistake. Let me fix that.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Illwei is that a post count? Or... what is it?

[Illwei]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

Illwei is that a post count? Or... what is it?

OH lmao yes that's a post count :P.

[Mat he/him]

5 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I did not hear you arguing for a different target, nor trying to find one, and in the end all you tried to do was "random vote" yourself. So yes, it told us absolutely nothing, but it's not like you can really complain passive-aggressively about it :P. 

 

Well, yeah. I didn’t. The vote at the end wasn’t random though 

[Ashbringer he/him]

Technically that vote at the end was Random...

Wait, no, that's not what you meant.

[Archer he/him]

SNOOPS’ TRAVEL DIARY: THE FORREST OF DREAMS: DAY 42

I want to begin today’s entry with a shout-out to you, lovely readers. My publishing schedule tells me that as I write this, the exciting climax of The Inn-side Story is being printed for tomorrow’s edition. My series on the Fanged Fighters of Fairstead should then run for three weeks, by which time I hope to have returned from this adventure to get this diary to my editor for release. It feels strange to think that you will have already finished those serials by the time you read this, but such is the life of a columnist! It is your support that allows me to be a fly on the wall in the most exciting frontiers of Threnody, so from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

A MINER SET-BACK: The mountain I told you of in my last entry is ripe with silver ore – but our party has also found some mysterious ruins of an ancient civilization! What happened to the people who once lived here? Could there be a curse on these lands that will slay all who set foot here?

WHERE THERE’S A WILL: Brilliant PROFESSOR WILLIAM DYER, ever the silver fox, is nonetheless eager to investigate. It would be such a shame for a mind like his to be lost to The Curse – and don’t get me started on that body!

THE WEIGHT IS OVER: Rumor has it that SAM has already lost three pounds after embarking on this journey of endurance. Who knew hiking was such good exercise? They had better watch they don’t lose anything else – like their sanity! (Or their patience with me!)

STARSTRUCK: Yours truly was shocked yesterday morning to be shoved from behind by none other than QUINTUS. What I brute! One has to wonder where they were headed in such a hurry. A rushed romantic rendezvous perhaps?

As always, I’ll keep my ear to the ground and report back tomorrow! -Sally ‘Snoops’ Starlingo

***

35 minutes ago, Illwei said:

Yes, I believe that suspicious != Elim. 

Yes, suspicious things can be a sign that that person is an Elim, but at the same time Villagers will more likely than not do more generally "suspicious" things than an Elim might. Elims are more self-conscious about their image. So A villager might random Vote and not really think about it during D1, while an Elim might not. Elims might try to give more explainations with their votes and not naked vote because they don't want to be questioned or be suspected about that. Elims might form more full thoughts or thought out responses because they don't want to be questioned so much on their thought process, because there isn't really any there. 

This philosophy hurts the village. The post of yours I took issue with was something like, “I’m voting Dannex for meta reasons,” with no accompanying explanation. Your job as a villager is to out-logic the voices of evil to convince your fellow villagers to vote for the right person while making it impossible for the elims to justify a CW. Your vote is unhelpful otherwise.

Furthermore, failing to articulate reasons reduces your accountability for the results of the vote. If Dannex had been exed and flipped village, we would have turned on you for an explanation. In theory, e!you has then stalled for 24 hours and came up with an excuse that will make us pause. Alternatively, you, could also just say brrr meta reasons and we’re left talking to a wall. Allowing people to act without providing reasons makes it easy for the elims to avoid our scrutiny. If everyone stops backing up their posts because that's the villagey thing to do, the game grinds to a stand-still. 

I encourage you to follow up your gut reads with persuasive arguments to get the rest of us on board with your train of thought.

28 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Well, yeah. I didn’t. The vote at the end wasn’t random though 

And YOU. Why on Threnody would you try to vote for yourself? You know you're village, right? 

[Mat he/him]

5 minutes ago, Archer said:

And YOU. Why on Threnody would you try to vote for yourself? You know you're village, right? 

I do. I also know that there was no chance of it actually picking up three other votes in what I thought was the literal final two seconds of the turn and ended up being too late. So no harm done, no harm meant. Just wanted to keep up voting every cycle of every game.

(And yes, I’m counting that as a successful vote even if the count does not :P.)

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

(And yes, I’m counting that as a successful vote even if the count does not :P.)

I count votes by the vote count, so since the vote count didn't count your vote, I don't count your vote in my count. And now that I've outvoted you, it might be time to vote you out.  

 

[dannnex male]

1 hour ago, Elandera said:

Of course it's Professor William Dyer. What other Professor does the University have?

Professor Jacob Lenn takes offense at this scribe’s note.

[Illwei]

@Archer

what?

No one actually asked me to explain further, yall voting on me didn't make clear what you wanted. It was meta reasons, it was because Danex hasn't been very Danex so far, and that's all there was to it. A retaliatory vote does nothing to help me understand what you need, and I'm not going to overexplain my thoughts when there's nothing to overexplain. 

[Archer he/him]

Alright, I reread the exchange and I think I see the problem. This post is done on mobile, sorry for the formatting. 

 

No, I know. But later, someone else had some meta reasoning about why Dannex is a good person to Stab. Can't remember who, though - Szeth

 

I remembered Archer saying something about meta reasoning with Dannex in one of his huge posts, so I was assuming Illwei had based their vote off of that.

-Szeth

 

Here, Szeth is mis-sheeping me. In my opening post, I briefly touched on Dannex's recent game performance and how that might affect how people interact with them, but Szeth misremembered or intentionally misquoted me as saying I saw meta reasons relating to their activity in THIS game that justify voting for them. That prompted Illwei to correct their last assumption there:

 

Araris was just Stabbing Danex, my vote has nothing to do with that :P. 

-Illwei

 

Here's where I misremembered. I missed this post shortly after:

 

The point was not that hes a good person to Stab, but that hes an easy target because of his erratic playstyle- something i havent seen much of right now.

Meta reasoning go brrr

-Illwei

 

Specifically, Illwei takes issue with Dannex not being erratic enough. The way it was delivered made me miss it. I was waiting for something a little more substantive to engage with, thinking you'd explain more, while you thought you'd already made a full explanation. 

So apologies for missing this and I should have followed up. I'll do that now. I'd there anything Dannex has said specifically that tipped you off, or is it just a general feeling of cautiousness from them? I don't feel comfortable voting for them based on general vibes. 

[Quintessential she/her]

8 hours ago, Archer said:

So apologies for missing this and I should have followed up. I'll do that now. I'd there anything Dannex has said specifically that tipped you off, or is it just a general feeling of cautiousness from them? I don't feel comfortable voting for them based on general vibes. 

Adding onto this: keep in mind the while controversial!Dannex is nearly always v!Dannex, he has had non-controversial village games (like LG74, for example), so saying he seems elim because he's not proposing some crazy plan with mechanics or asking vanillas to claim or whatever doesn't really hold up under closer inspection.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

10 hours ago, Archer said:

No, I know. But later, someone else had some meta reasoning about why Dannex is a good person to Stab. Can't remember who, though - Szeth

 

I remembered Archer saying something about meta reasoning with Dannex in one of his huge posts, so I was assuming Illwei had based their vote off of that.

-Szeth

 

Here, Szeth is mis-sheeping me. In my opening post, I briefly touched on Dannex's recent game performance and how that might affect how people interact with them, but Szeth misremembered or intentionally misquoted me

It was a misquote

I had just read through the thread, and had just caught up with it when Illwei voted Dannex, and said “Meta reasoning go brrrr.” Thinking they were mentioning your post, since it talked about meta reasoning when it came to Dannex, I told Dannex to backread. When Illwei was confused, I realized I had misjudged what their reasoning was, and explained using the second post. However, since I didn’t think to actually go back and check what you said, I ended up misremembering your post.

[vonnegut she/her]

Good morning.  I will be around until 2 (eastern time) and then my availability will be really limited until tomorrow.  Not that it seems like much is going on today, anyway.

My thoughts at this point:  That execution netted us practically no information.  I would bet, though, that there are more than one Elim in that vote for Randby.  They would likely be enthusiastic about the idea of knocking off a town by execution rather than having to kill her at night-- a no-day-kill would be more likely to benefit the town.  (A no-day-kill is possible in this game, right?)  

Question to everyone who voted Randby:  Regretting your decision, or do you stand by it?  Since the rationale seemed to be "better to kill an inactive," is that the same strategy you think should be pursued on the next day?  

Question to everyone who DIDN'T vote:  Why didn't you vote?  What's your reasoning?

Question to Matrim in particular:  Well, maybe not a question, just a hard stare.  Really, voting for yourself just to say "I voted"?

Question to Szeth in particular:  Who do you suspect at this point?

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I don’t regret killing off Randby, and this is a meta issue that has been frequently discussed. During D1, it is far easier for active players to gather suspicion upon themselves, regardless of alignment. But if we kill them off immediately, we lose the potential further information/analysis that they will do. We also keep the thread more active, which just makes the game more fun.

For your points about elims voting for Randby, perhaps, except there will always be a grinch. So it really only makes sense to suspect Randby voters if you make a further assumption, such as the elims wanting to actively participate in the grinch, or that one of the players that had a couple of votes earlier on is elim and the team was worried about them dying instead.

It is possible that by the end of our D1, not killing anyone could have been a viable option, if allowed by the rules. Given that it isn’t (and given the existence of secret votes), I think Randby was a good alternative.

[Mat he/him]

7 minutes ago, vonnegut said:

Question to Matrim in particular:  Well, maybe not a question, just a hard stare.  Really, voting for yourself just to say "I voted"?

Yep  Really, it was just a joke to keep up a personal streak more than anything else. I mean, I obviously don't suspect myself. For all practical and analysis purposes, I didn't vote.

12 minutes ago, vonnegut said:

Question to everyone who DIDN'T vote:  Why didn't you vote?  What's your reasoning?

Meaning I should answer this too. I didn't vote because I didn't like any of the options. I didn't find any of the candidates suspicious enough to warrant my vote, and quite honestly was swamped irl and couldn't backread to find a place for my own suggestion. So I abstained.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

50 minutes ago, vonnegut said:

Question to Szeth in particular:  Who do you suspect at this point?

I suspect either Quinn or Araris, but not both.

Reasoning: Quinn was very quick to suspect Araris, and looked like she was trying to cover it up so no one thought she was one of the first to hop on the Araris vote train. Araris was acting a bit suspicious overall, and I can't really put my finger on why. Also, they encouraged me to vote early, and they knew that my suspicions were completely on Quinn at the time. If I was going to vote one of them, it would definitely be Quinn, but if Quinn is Village, I think it would be Araris.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 minute ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Araris was acting a bit suspicious overall, and I can't really put my finger on why.

Welcome to the club of "Araris is vaguely suspicious for unspecified reasons"! 

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Just now, Araris Valerian said:

Welcome to the club of "Araris is vaguely suspicious for unspecified reasons"! 

I'm just really not sure what seems off about you. Maybe it's just the wording of your posts...? Anyway, I promise I won't go after you until I have some more concrete evidence.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Oh, don't worry about it. It's just that I have grown rather used to seeing comments like yours over the years. Something to do with my playstyle that I definitely don't do on purpose.

[Quintessential she/her]

1 hour ago, vonnegut said:

Question to everyone who voted Randby:  Regretting your decision, or do you stand by it?  Since the rationale seemed to be "better to kill an inactive," is that the same strategy you think should be pursued on the next day?  

In my case it was more security against the votes shifting back to me than anything :P. So no, I don't regret it. 

Sorry, I would provide more input but I'm not feeling very well and just the thought of backreading D1 would give me a headache if I didn't already have one : P

[Illwei]

29 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Sorry, I would provide more input but I'm not feeling very well and just the thought of backreading D1 would give me a headache if I didn't already have one : P

And you want to play MU Champs? xD.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

15 minutes ago, Illwei said:

And you want to play MU Champs? xD.

Please, please don't use that emoticon.

I hate it so much.

I hate it with a burning rage deep in my soul that will never go away.

[Quintessential she/her]

18 minutes ago, Illwei said:

And you want to play MU Champs? xD.

I feel awful 'cause I just got the second COVID shot and it has annoying side effects smh I won't still have just gotten the second COVID shot by the time Champs rolls around : P

Edited April 30, 2021 by Quintessential

[Jondesu he/him]

3 hours ago, vonnegut said:

Good morning.  I will be around until 2 (eastern time) and then my availability will be really limited until tomorrow.  Not that it seems like much is going on today, anyway.

My thoughts at this point:  That execution netted us practically no information.  I would bet, though, that there are more than one Elim in that vote for Randby.  They would likely be enthusiastic about the idea of knocking off a town by execution rather than having to kill her at night-- a no-day-kill would be more likely to benefit the town.  (A no-day-kill is possible in this game, right?)  

Question to everyone who voted Randby:  Regretting your decision, or do you stand by it?  Since the rationale seemed to be "better to kill an inactive," is that the same strategy you think should be pursued on the next day?  

Question to everyone who DIDN'T vote:  Why didn't you vote?  What's your reasoning?

Question to Matrim in particular:  Well, maybe not a question, just a hard stare.  Really, voting for yourself just to say "I voted"?

Question to Szeth in particular:  Who do you suspect at this point?

Eh, I wouldn’t go that far. Elims like votes on townies, yes, but they like it even more when they can’t be blamed for it. There’s likely one Elim in the Random Bystander train, just by odds and numbers, but even that’s not guaranteed, and I wouldn’t think two or more jumped on specifically because some people assume like you do. Maybe that’s straying into an IKYK, but I don’t overly suspect the others who voted on Randby. Providing reasoning to build suspicion on someone else or simply remaining ambivalent is usually a better Elim strategy Day 1.

As for me, I don’t regret it, though I would have been happier had we gotten an Elim of course. Wouldn’t have given us more information but it would have thinned their team.

I assume no one discovered anything by Listening at the Door during the day cycle or we’d have heard by now, right? Just reviewing the rules and reminding myself what can be done.